


The Mice that Roar

by thegirlwiththemouseyhair



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-13 00:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7131284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirlwiththemouseyhair/pseuds/thegirlwiththemouseyhair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur and his daemon kept to themselves in the smoky, dimly lit bar. Arthur had chosen a seat by the wall that allowed him to watch the door without drawing attention to himself, because he’d experienced enough of that lately. He’d *done* enough of that lately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Mice that Roar

Arthur and his daemon kept to themselves in the smoky, dimly lit bar. Arthur had chosen a seat by the wall that allowed him to watch the door without drawing attention to himself, because he’d experienced enough of that lately. He’d _done_ enough of that lately. The Brian Slade/Tommy Stone story had taken off, and would either make or break his career. Arthur didn’t know yet. He was only grateful that his daemon, Aderyn, usually the quieter and more cautious part of him, hadn’t tried to talk him out of it. But he’d become something of a minor celebrity himself in the world of entertainment journalism, for whatever that was worth. Other papers and magazines had picked up the story, and some of the TV entertainment programmes had even played that fateful footage of him asking 'Tommy Stone' about Brian Slade. People at the _Herald_ were predictably pissed off about Arthur's freelance exploits, but a few of his more recent interview subjects had tried to pump _him_ for information about Tommy Stone. Arthur was surprised every time someone knew his name or recognized his face: it was too weird, being recognized for anything. He didn’t even look like himself in that stupid video, and hoped for the sake of his vanity that Curt Wild had seen his articles instead, with the decent headshot that accompanied them.

Then again, he’d be happy knowing that Curt Wild had seen _anything_ of his _._ Their meeting after the Stone show hadn’t felt very final or very satisfying.

“We shouldn’t keep coming back here,” Deryn said into Arthur’s ear. He was sitting on Arthur’s shoulder watching Arthur intently while twitching his wood mouse tail. Arthur reached one hand up to stroke him.

“I just - want a break from things,” Arthur replied. That was true enough. He wasn’t used to attention. Too many people looking at him and reading and talking about his work - seeing _himself_ on the telly, even if it was just a couple programmes showing a few seconds of footage - felt all wrong. Worth breaking the story; exposing Brian Slade for the massive sell out he’d become was appropriate, like a fitting end to Arthur’s glam rock days and to all that Brian had once meant to him and to thousands of people like him. It was comforting to know that other betrayed fans still remembered, and still felt the same. But the attention Arthur was getting and the fear that Brian and Shannon might retaliate - might use whatever influence they had to make sure no one would ever publish a word of Arthur’s again - served as a constant reminder that he might be in over his head. Brian had gone to such lengths to hide the past. He’d even managed to camouflage his daemon, whom Arthur remembered as a brilliant Eastern magpie with blue-green plumage, far more glamourous than Shannon’s jay. The two of them and their daemons had more cleverness between them than Arthur and Deryn had.

And yet, they hadn’t done anything so far. Arthur didn’t know whether or not their inaction should reassure him at all. Probably not. He must be living on borrowed time.

Deryn butted his head against Arthur’s finger.

“Tell me you’re not just doing this to get his attention,” he said.

Arthur didn’t need to ask who Deryn meant. It was obvious. They’d had the same conversation every time he’d come back here. Arthur had all but memorized Deryn’s lines.

“Not entirely,” Arthur said. His fingers went instinctively to the green pin at his jacket collar. He walked around imagining that it might fall off and get lost, on top of all his other worries. Trust him to guard Curt Wild’s pin with more love and care than anything he’d owned in years.

Deryn gave a shake of his head and climbed down Arthur’s arm into the pocket of his jeans. Arthur looked around them. The barman had passed by to wipe down a nearby table, his beagle daemon trotting beside him. Arthur smiled at the sight. Deryn had liked to take the shape of a beagle, too, when Arthur was young. A beagle, a mouse, and a linnet, the shy, small British bird for which Aderyn had been named. That was when he still lived in the cage that was his parents’ house.

The barman’s eyes met Arthur’s, which made Arthur glance away again and put a hand to his face, no longer smiling. _Please don’t recognize me,_ he thought. _I’m not your source for celebrity gossip or conspiracy bullshit. Not usually, anyway._ To his relief the barman moved on without talking to him.

“Well, I said exposing Brian Slade - Tommy Stone - was the one brave thing we should do for a long time,” Deryn went on. “Concentrate on that, like, and for the right reasons. Not do it just to chase after Curt Wild.”

“We’ve been through this,” Arthur murmured. He kept his voice low and his eyes on the door, just in case. He imagined Curt walking in and coming up to him, waving his hand in recognition, with his daemon's wolfish tail wagging behind them both.

“I saw your article,” Arthur hoped he'd say. “I liked it. I like guys who cause trouble, the shit disturbers -” He might notice Deryn, then - “- The mice that roar.”

Then Arthur's fantasy diverged. He could try to act cooler than he was, or he could let Curt know that wasn't usually like this, that Brian's transformation from a hero of the alienated, queer kids to this shill for President Reynolds had motivated desperate measures. Curt would understand better than anyone else. If only they'd see him again...

“And yet, you keep dragging us back here,” Deryn’s small voice cut in. “I mean, if we were going to chase after Curt Wild, the time to do it was when we were actually _talking_ to him.”

Arthur shrugged. He wished he’d kept Curt longer last time. He wished it so hard, in fact, that he could kick himself for not doing so - had spent days afterward berating himself in his head, where only Deryn had the slightest sense of how unhappy he was and how wrong things were. He could still feel the warmth and the sweat of Curt’s fingers when Curt tried to press the pin into his hands. He should have asked him to come back to his place, or run out into the night after him and snogged him in the alley behind the bar, only, Arthur didn't have that kind of thing in him. He never did. That was for people with charisma or bollocks or some indefinable ingredient that Arthur had always lacked.

“He might live nearby or something. I just-”

“You just can’t let go,” Deryn insisted. “Why can’t you let go? Who else at our age would still be chasing a teen idol of theirs? We _knew_ it wasn’t going to last when we were seventeen. Why’ve you gone backwards?”

“Just shut it, will you?” Arthur heard the same chattering every time they came back here, and wondered why he couldn't make Deryn understand how much of his past - their past - seemed alive again. _Arthur_ felt so alive he didn’t know what to do with himself: it had been so long since he'd been interested in much of anything, or acknowledged that he might have any dreams or ambitions left. Weren’t those things worth pursuing? 

Deryn changed tack. “And if you want sex, or love, you’re still going about it all wrong, you know. We should be in a club in the Village somewhere meeting new people, not a random pub in Midtown stalking Curt Wild. Is this even _legal_?”

Arthur unclenched his jaw before slipping his hand into his pocket to placate Deryn. His daemon had touched a nerve. Arthur was dying for a shag, the sort that would obliterate his nagging worries about work, at least for a while, and that he’d be feeling for days after. He _was_ going about it backwards. But his partner in his fantasies was still Curt Wild, who he remembered as the best sex of his life (though he was probably wrong, to be honest), and - well. There he was.

“I’m hoping we’ll see them again. There’s a difference.”

Deryn nipped Arthur’s finger with all the force he had in him.

“ _Ow!_ Deryn, for Christ’s sake…”

“The thing is, even if we do see them, what will you do? Sleep with Curt again? Never hear back from him and stay obsessed for another decade?”

“It hasn’t been a whole decade,” Arthur murmured. He took his hand from his pocket, surveyed the red mark Deryn had left on his forefinger, and rubbed it uselessly on the front of his jeans. “And it hasn’t been _just_ him.”

“No,” Deryn replied, “you’re right. You're always like this. It’s like you’re only -”

Arthur sighed. “Only what?”

“Like you’re only capable of _liking_ men who’ll forget you exist in five minutes.”

 _Sums me up_ , Arthur thought ruefully. Brian Slade. Curt Wild. Even Ray - who’d insisted on letting Arthur travel with the Flaming Creatures, and who was the first person Arthur ever slept with - had moved on to better, more interesting boyfriends soon after. Then there was Charlie, the successful filmmaker when Arthur was struggling to put himself through school and should have known better, and after that Michael, the travel writer who was one of several factors that had lured Arthur to America. They’d hadn’t forgotten Arthur in a matter of _minutes_ , but they hadn’t needed very long, either.

His fingers returned to the pin at his collar. Curt might have remembered him, though he doubted it, and he knew that Deryn did as well. They’d had that conversation several times, too.

“And let’s say we do meet Curt, and you get involved with him for a while,” Deryn added. “What then? He’s been addicted to hard drugs most of his life. We know that. We know the kind of temper he has. That’s not a lifestyle we can deal with anymore, if we ever could. They’d eat us alive.”

It was an apt metaphor. They must be very destructive, and very unhappy - Curt with his history of addiction and his reputation for smashing studios and reducing journalists to tears, and his beautiful daemon with her, or his, sharp teeth and desolate howl. And yet, Curt’s daemon had touched Arthur once on that rooftop ten years ago. The tip of her tail had brushed Arthur’s leg when she (Arthur didn’t know why he assumed Curt’s daemon was female, despite everything) was trying to wag it. An accident, for sure, but it was hard to think of it as meaningless. When they’d touched, Arthur had half expected to see a mark burned onto his skin, like he’d been struck by lightning or something.

 _Just an accident,_ Deryn had reminded him many times over the years. It must have been: like a pet dog hitting someone with a wag of its tail when it was particularly happy. And Curt’s daemon had looked happy on that rooftop - happier than either of them had looked in this same dingy bar two weeks ago.

“The thing is, I’m probably just an idiot,” Arthur said, slipping his hand back into his pocket and risking Deryn’s teeth. He was trying to be apologetic: he didn’t think Deryn would nip him again. “Romantically, I mean. Probably in other ways, too.”

He felt Deryn’s small head nuzzling his palm. The touch warmed him a little. “You do remember that when you’re miserable, I am too?”

“I know.” Arthur stroked his daemon’s fur and shook his head. “And _you_ know that if you want what’s best for me, you might be waiting a long time.”

But Arthur would be waiting, too, for far longer than he should be, for a glimpse of blond hair and black leather and the coyote daemon who had once touched him, years before.


End file.
